Stealing the Sky
by Thenumber1riddlerfan
Summary: A thief starts raiding the guild-members' apartments looking for something. Needless to say, this does not go over well with Natsu, Lucy, and Co. Will contain Nalu, Gale, Wendy and OC, and possibly some Gruvia, Laxana, and Jerza later on.


As usual, tell me any mistakes and I'll fix them, and as usual, I was partially delirious when I wrote this. First multi-chapter fic.

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When Natsu Dragneel and his companion, Happy burst through the doors of Fairy Tail covered in mud, no one batted an eye. Lucy and Mira continued chatting at the bar about rising rent prices, Levy didn't look up from her book, Gajeel didn't move from his corner, where he had a perfect view of the previously mentioned solid script mage, Erza didn't stray from the request board, and Gray and Elfman continued their brawl which had stemmed from the fact that it wasn't "manly" to not wear pants. Not even Wendy paid any attention as Carla took two of her checkers.

"F $*ing bastard….. Incinerate him… burn him alive….." Natsu crossed the room, running and tackling Gray, just as he was about unleash an ice make upon the beast man in front of him. "WHERE IS IT ALL?" Natsu yelled at the now facedown Gray. Elfman roared.

"It is not manly to interrupt a fight between two…." Whatever Elfman was going to say next will never be known, because at that moment, Natsu turned around and spewed a fireball the size of a horse at the unfortunate man, hurling him across the room and through the wall on the other side, barely missing one of the recently hired waiters.

"What did you do, you perverted stripper!?" Natsu growled as Gray stumbled to his feet.

"What the hell are you talking about, Dragon Boy?!" Gray unleashed volley of ice arrows, which Natsu promptly melted. The two mages were now the center of the guild's attention.

Suddenly, both felt a strange chill, the turned to see Erza looking down at them with a disapproving frown.

"Erza, Gray's been in my house!" Natsu shouted; his fists still engulfed in flames.

"Don't be an idiot! I don't even know where your house is!" Gray replied, cold wind swirling around him.

"I know it was you, snowflake!" Natsu snarled, his flames burning higher.

"Enough!" It was a credit to Erza's power that as soon as she spoke, both boys stopped generating their magic. "Natsu, I don't know what you're going on about, but Gray's been here at the guild all day. Now what's going on?"

"I've been robbed, and I know the snow princess did it!"

"Are you deaf, flame-brain? I've been here all day, and besides, why would I want to steal from you?!"

"Natsu, Gray, that's enough!" Erza sounded like she was going to start cracking heads soon. Natsu spared one last dirty look at Gray before heading to the bar, passing the young traumatized waiter, a black-haired, blue-eyed boy from town, who was picking up the shattered pieces of the bottles he dropped.

"Hey, Lucy, I need a place to crash tonight."

"Natsu, sleep on your own bed!" Lucy hissed, her face heating up.

"I can't. They took it." A silence followed this announcement.

"They...took your bed?" Wendy hesitantly asked, being drawn into the conversation for the first time.

"Then sleep on your sofa." Lucy insisted stubbornly. "I know you have one."

"They took that too," Natsu growled. "They took pretty much everything. All the furniture, all my souvenirs, hell, they even took my Erza dummy and Lucy's maid outfit!" Levy, who had just taken a sip of a drink, choked when she heard the last item on that list, and looked questioningly between the celestial spirit mage and the fire dragon slayer.

"They took my knapsack!" Happy cried out as he turned to show them his Fairy Tail mark, and knapsackless back.

"It has to be a mage, right?" Levy questioned. "Either that or a large group of people that can move a bunch of stuff quickly. How did it happen?"

"I don't know! Happy and I woke up this morning, and it was all just gone. We were sleeping on the floor." Gajeel let out his signature laugh.

"What kind of morons sleep through a burglary of their house?" he sneered. A couple of jeers rolled throughout the guild, but mainly there was silence.

"You want to go, lunkhead?!" Natsu yelled, firing up right away.

"Happy to!" The previously mentioned waiter, having just returned what was left of the broken bottles to his tray, was promptly shoved out of the way by Gajeel as he strode forward, resulting in more shattered glass. Before the two could start throwing punches, Mira spoke up.

"Natsu, how did you and Happy get all muddy? It doesn't sound like that was part of the robbery." She asked as she helped the near-tears boy clean up. Natsu suddenly looked sheepish.

"Well, we ah, hurried out the door to find the stripper, and someone had used the old, bucket on top of the door trick." Gajeel started laughing again. "Shaddup!" Natsu lunged at the iron dragon slayer; body ablaze, only to be held back by Erza's arm.

"Natsu, Gajeel, wait for a second."

"Erza, you can't stop me from killing Gajeel." Natsu complained, only for Erza to turn around and make her way to the second floor. A few awkward seconds passed as Natsu and Gajeel glared at each other, but neither seemed willing to directly defy Erza. Around this time, a moan was heard outside the room, as Elfman climbed back through the hole he had made. Erza descended the stairs, clutching a job in her hand.

"Your situation sounded familiar, Natsu. Read this." Natsu snatched the sheet, and read aloud.

_WANTED: Shadow Thief Umbrax_

_Felon is extremely powerful, weaker wages should avoid application. His powers could include, but are not limited to: sleep, flight, some degree of weather control, invisibility, deterioration of most solid masses, levitation, and/or transforming into a gaseous state. Other powers aside, felon uses a form of mind control magic we have never seen. The felon is to be captured __alive__. Once he is in custody, contact the magic council. Representatives will be sent to relieve you, and give the successful party the reward of __ 5000000 __jewels. Warning: In case you missed it, FELON IS EXTREMELY POWERFUL. This job should only be attempted by mages who have earned elite status within their guild. _

Natsu stared down at the page. "This…..is the guy?" Flame started coating his arms; luckily Erza snatched the job sheet back before it inadvertently fried. "I'm going to find this bastard, and I'm going to make him give me back my stuff! I'm all fired UP!" And with that, Natsu raced from the guild, body aflame.

"Do you even know where you're going?!" Lucy yelled after him. Erza looked back at the job.

"I don't know if this is Natsu's thief, but he's certainly worth watching out for. You all should keep an eye out. From what I gather here, this guy makes a habit of targeting mages, and if he's now in Magnolia, Fairy Tail must do all it can to bring him down."

Erza's pronouncement was met with mix responses from the guild, some enthusiastic, some concerned, a few fearful, some bored.  
"I hope we don't run into him," Wendy told Carla, as Levy made her way over to Lucy. "He sounds dangerous and mean."

"Of course he's dangerous," Carla sniffed. "It's an S-class mission, though that level of jobs isn't usually going after burglars. Even if he is an exceptionally powerful thief, the magic council doesn't usually post jobs themselves, I wonder what's different about him?" Meanwhile, Levy stared at Lucy, a thoughtful look in her eye.

"So Lu-chan,…" Levy began as Lucy took a sip of her drink. "Does Natsu have a maid fetish?" The hacking noises that followed would've shamed a cat. (Happy actually stared, wide eyed.)

"Wh….what?" Lucy spluttered when she managed to swallow.

"Sorry, Lu-chan. It was rude of me to ask. What you do with Natsu when you're alone is your business. I just want to know how long it has been going on." If any more blood traveled to Lucy's head, she was going to have an aneurysm.

"Levy," she squeaked. "It's not like that at all!" Levy looked skeptical.

"Are you sure? I mean, you guys do sleep in the same bed a lot. C'mon, how'd it happen?" Lucy felt like she wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

"Nothing happened! That outfit is really old, from one of our first missions together! I was required to dress like a maid!"

"And he kept it?! That's so romantic!" Levy squealed.

"He kept if for a sense of nostalgia, just like all his other souvenirs!"

"How do you know? Anyway, what's it like to sleep next to a dragon slayer? How do you tell if one's interested in you?"

"WE DON'T SLEEP NEX…..wait, why do you want to know?" At this, Levy turned red and mumbled something about just being curious. Before Lucy could exploit the situation, however, the waiter carrying the shattered bottles tripped on a loose board and toppled into her. Erza then hurried over to "suggest" that he find a different line of work.

While Erza gave the poor soul her constructive criticism, Mira brushed Lucy off. " I really wish Erza would stop scaring the townspeople off. Someone needs to be waitressing, and I can't do it all on my own."

"Anyway, see you Lu-chan!" Levy turned and walked briskly towards the exit. Mira just happened to notice that a certain dragon slayer's eyes followed her all the way to the door.

After Erza had finished "escorting" the former waiter from the premises, she said something about sharing the thief job with Master Makarov, and went upstairs. Wendy came over to join Mira and Lucy.

"Miss Mira, is the thief something to worry about?" the now thirteen year old asked. Mira smiled.

"Don't worry Wendy, who could rob Fairy Tail?"

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The boy smiled, walking down the now dark Magnolia streets. Today hadn't gone exactly as planned, but it was still a success. Unfortunately, he hadn't found what he was looking for in the fire dragon's apartment, but there were plenty of other guild-members who could have it. His whole body still ached after what the red-haired chick had put him through, but the waiter idea hadn't been a total flop. (He really didn't want to have to run into her again though.) Besides picking the wallets of over half the guild members, (He had even got the black-haired man's when he had shoved him.) and getting free booze, he now knew who his most powerful adversaries would be. He also knew where most of the guild-members lived, having collected a number of apartment and house keys, but the true prizes were the special gold and silver keys he had gotten off the blond. (Really, he just tripped? Someone should've seen that coming. It was textbook.) Of course the best was yet to come. Yes they called him Umbrax the shadow thief, but sometimes the best jobs you could pull, didn't require magic at all.

The boy turned the corner and looked up at the tall building on the block. Fairy Hills, the dormitory for most of Fairy Tails female wizards. It could be in there, but unless he wanted to risk another encounter with the red-headed embodiment of pain, he couldn't just walk in. There were hundreds of ways in for a person like him, but most involved some amount of risk, especially considering he was breaking into a building chock-full of mages. He needed a full-proof way in. He really didn't want to keep coming here, night after night, searching all of the apartments one at a time for it. Moving back into the street's alleys, he spied a small blue-haired girl entering the building alongside a white cat in a dress. A calculating grin formed on the boy's face. She would be perfect. Yes, this would be fun.

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Anyway, this chapter was just to set things up. Tell me who you think should get their valuables taken next in a review. Also, tell me in a review what Umbrax's real name should be. I don't want to have to keep calling him Umbrax. (A play off the latin word for shadow. Creative, right?) More romance and plot coming up next, I promise.


End file.
